An unlikely FBI counterterrorism case wrapping up in Ohio casts a brilliant and shining mild on a gaping national-security gap within the southwest border as the best mass migration disaster in American historical past overwhelms its defenses.
The Ohio FBI subject workplace final 12 months busted a neighborhood Iraqi asylum seeker, former al Qaeda fighter Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab, within the midst of orchestrating a reputable worldwide plot to assassinate President George W. Bush in Texas utilizing a outstanding tactic.
An Ohio federal choose simply accepted Shihab’s responsible plea on costs he was going to smuggle a minimum of 4 Iraqi nationals in over the southern border for the Bush assassination, court docket information present.
(Plea-deal papers exhibiting all costs however one had been dropped point out Shihab is cooperating with US intelligence on abroad points associated to his plot.)
Misplaced usually media disinterest in terrorism circumstances that don’t contain white supremacists is that this FBI investigation uncovered — in uncommon, multi-colored element — that severe Islamic terrorist operatives outdoors the nation see the overwhelmed southern border with Mexico as a breachable route into America.
In fact they do. A record-smashing 4.8 million unlawful immigrants have crossed since President Biden took workplace, in accordance with Homeland Safety Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and different sources. At the very least 1.5 million of these are presumed to have entered the nation undetected as “gotaways.”
A former al Qaeda fighter who killed many US troopers in the course of the early phases of the Iraq Battle, Shihab himself someway managed to fly into an American airport with a vacationer visa underneath intelligence radars in September 2020, earlier than this mass-migration disaster started.
He overstayed the vacationer visa, lodged an asylum declare forestalling deportation and commenced considering the border, an arrest-warrant affidavit exhibits.
As border defenses collapsed, Shihab clearly realized that crossing terrorist operatives among the many tens of millions had turn into much less dangerous than the tourist-visa-overstay technique he’d used.
He claimed to undercover FBI informants that he’d efficiently smuggled in two Hezbollah operatives over it, the information allege, with out elaboration, then turned to replicating that success for the Bush assassination.
Shihab reached out to his former terrorist comrades with whom he’d killed Individuals in Iraq, a unit as soon as often called “Thunder” in Arabic, and commenced working with a brand new unit chief in Qatar.
Happily, the FBI launched informants into Shihab’s circle.
Plans known as for a minimum of 4 of eight Thunder terrorists to pay $40,000 every for journey into Brazil on fraudulently obtained visas, then go up by means of the infamous Darien Hole jungle-smuggling passage between Colombia and Panama.
A record-setting 250,000 immigrants from 150 international locations crossed by means of the hole in 2022, in contrast with fewer than 10,000 most years in regular occasions, for perspective.
From Central America, Shihab’s terrorists would meld unnoticed with the multinational lots transferring north to the US-Mexico border, then cross possibly carrying fake Border Patrol uniforms, the informants reported.
Because the plot progressed, Shihab truly flew to Texas and performed surveillance of Bush’s houses in Dallas and a central Texas ranch. He was determining provision weapons for the coming operatives for once they may stalk and kill Bush.
Sounding alarm
His Might 2022 arrest definitely foiled the plot however sounded an necessary alarm that should be heard because the historic multinational mass migration continues into its third 12 months at ionospheric heights.
What this case demonstrates, past the very fact these specific unhealthy guys noticed the border as extra weak to entry than earlier than, is that the remainder of the jihadist universe should additionally see it that means.
They’d be appropriate.
Since Biden’s January 2021 inauguration, a record-breaking 169 unlawful immigrants on the FBI terrorism watch record have been caught after their crossings, Customs and Border Safety statistics present. What number of others bought by means of among the many 1.5 million “gotaways” who reached the inside and have disappeared is the essential query.
Shihab undoubtedly hoped his terrorist brothers could be amongst these gotaways.
So many immigrants at the moment are coming from international locations of terrorism concern within the Center East, South Asia and North Africa {that a} nonprofit noticed sufficient demand for providers to open up a shelter in Tijuana final April, simply two blocks from the border wall, that caters solely to Muslims.
It’s all the time packed to capability with Muslim migrants of unknown and unchecked backgrounds who all plan to cross into America a technique or one other.
After I investigated this facility final fall, I met Russian Chechens, Tajikistanis, Syrians, Uzbeks and Somalis.
The shelter’s director admitted in November that since her grand opening, nobody from American intelligence had ever reached out to ask her something, and neither had the Mexicans.
The American indifference is only one of many items of proof indicating safety breakdown.
As I additionally lately reported, a Lebanese-Venezuelan migrant who swam the Rio Grande from Matamoros to Brownsville, Texas, in early December 2021 was on the FBI terror watch record.
FBI brokers who nonetheless managed to interview him amid that month’s file crush of humanity discovered “substantial derogatory intelligence” on the Venezuelan and counted him a “excessive threat” and a “flight threat,” recommending he stay in custody, information I’ve present.
Usually, such people are deported. However as a substitute, Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters ordered the person launched for concern that, on account of his weight, he may catch COVID.
He remained free final time I checked, pursuing an asylum declare in Detroit.
One other fouled-up case occurred on the Mexican aspect, the place the FBI is meant to intently collaborate.
In keeping with paperwork leaked to me, Mexican immigration officers in April 2021 caught a watch-listed Yemeni named Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed simply as he was about to cross into Del Rio, Texas.
Mexico tried deporting him. However in July 2021, a second the border was swamped on each side, the Yemeni got here again. Moderately than deport Ahmed, as I reported, the Mexicans merely let him go to filter out detention facilities. A Be-On-the-Lookout, which I’ve, went to legislation enforcement alongside the US border.
It’s unclear if American legislation enforcement ever discovered him.
Worst-case state of affairs
There’s worse.
In late Might, Fox Information reported that Border Patrol someway missed that Colombian nationwide Isnardo Garcia-Amado was on the FBI’s terror watch record after it caught him crossing close to Yuma, Ariz., in April.
Within the chaos that month, Border Patrol launched the suspected terrorist and gave him a GPS monitoring machine as an alternative choice to detention, a typical means now for the company to course of the tons of of 1000’s of migrants overwhelming detention facilities.
Garcia-Amado was free inside america for 2 weeks earlier than Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him in Pinellas County, Fla., Might 6.
Earlier than the feds wrap up the Shihab case with a last bow and transfer on, America ought to pause and perceive what it means because the historic Biden border disaster rages on for a minimum of the following two years.
Todd Bensman is the creator of “Overrun, How Joe Biden Unleashed the Biggest Border Crisisin U.S. Historical past.”
